India had its family planning policy in place before the first Lok Sabha was sworn in. It was during the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government in 1970s that the two-child policy received an aggressive push. This was the decade when China shifted from two-child to one-child policy. Then during 1980s, 'Hum Do Hamare Do' (We two, ours two) was popularised through mass campaigns. The National Health Policy was adopted. The National Population Policy came in 2000 with long-term objective of stabilizing the population by 2045. Now some politicians in India are clamoring for what they believe to be a quick fix to the country's population problem: a two-child policy for Indian citizens. Today, India's population stands at 1.31 billion people, second only to China. Experts estimate India will surpass China in just a few years. If the population goes on increasing, there will enormous pressure on facilities like water, roads, health and sanitation. The land is shrinking and the population is rising. One must realise that a coercive two-child norm is not the best way to stabilize population. A coercive population policy will result in high number of sex-selective abortions, abandonment of women and eventually a skewed sex ratio. A two-child norm is not the solution. Instead, we need to focus on changing social norms, increasing investments in family planning services, especially bearing in mind India’s large young population and ensuring gender-inclusive socioeconomic policies.
